


Pictures of You

by GhostOfDorothyStreet



Category: Gotham (TV)
Genre: (note that the actual sex between the main pairing is consensual), Anal Sex, Angst, Blackmail, Dubious Consent, Eventual Happy Ending, Guilt, M/M, Masturbation, Seduction, Voyeurism
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-02-19
Updated: 2018-03-09
Packaged: 2019-03-21 10:54:33
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 4
Words: 6,516
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13739382
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/GhostOfDorothyStreet/pseuds/GhostOfDorothyStreet
Summary: A routine murder investigation turns up some... interesting, old photographs...





	1. Chapter 1

Jim stood back as Harvey shouldered open the door to a small office. The corridor they were stood in was narrow and grimy, and the inside of the office was no better, everything being covered with a layer of dust that suggested it hadn’t been cleaned, or indeed visited at all, in quite some time.

The office in question was leased to city councilman Roland Jefferies, who had been found murdered in his apartment that morning – two bullet holes to the chest, one sloppily aimed, the other more precise. Forensics suspected an amateur rather than a professional, but Gotham being Gotham that hardly narrowed things down. Having searched Jefferies’ home office and workplace, they had uncovered this second office, and had high hopes of uncovering some source of a motive within.

“You take the filing cabinet, I’ll take the desk?”

Harvey nodded, and Jim sat himself down on the worn office chair. The desk was a battered wooden affair; well made and probably expensive once upon a time, but scarred and stained with water rings and spilled ink. Jim rifled through the drawers, feeling for hidden compartments, and soon came up with a series of financial papers and letters that looked promising – unbeknownst to his grieving widow, Jefferies apparently had gambling debts, and a lot of them at that.

“Think I may have our motive here, Harv…”

“Atta boy,” said Harvey. He was about to close the cabinet when something inside caught his eye “Hey, check this out.”

Jim looked up to see Harvey holding up an envelope he’d found in the drawer. He set the papers on the desk, pushed the desk drawer closed and crossed the room to peer over Harvey’s shoulder.

“Looks like old blackmail photos,” said Jim. He reached over to pull a selection of glossy eight by ten photos out of the envelope. All of them depicted Councilman Jefferies in the throes of passion with someone who was far too young, and more crucially far too male to be his wife, “Kinda weird that he hung onto them…”

Harvey plucked the top photo from Jim’s hand, pulling his reading glasses out of his pocket and squinting.

“I dunno, maybe he wanted to relive the memory? Looks like he had himself a pretty good time.”

Jim shrugged as he leafed through the rest of the photos. Harvey wasn’t wrong, the late Mr Jefferies certainly did look to be enjoying himself, and in a pretty interesting variety of positions at that…

Judging by the state of Jefferies’ hair and waistline, the photos were about ten or fifteen years old, and judging by the angles and occasional sides and corners cut off by windows and curtains, they’d probably been taken from a building across the street. The focus was mostly on Jefferies – his reputation being the one on the line and all that – with his partner being something of an afterthought beyond the obvious details of not being a woman and specifically not being Mrs Jefferies. Glimpses of his face did appear in some shots though, enough for Jim to discern that he was small and slim, probably in his early 20s, and that he had jet black hair contrasting with very pale skin.

And that there was something very familiar about him.

He was nearing the end of the stack, when a shot featuring a clear shot of the young man’s face in profile came up and hit him like a punch to the gut. It was suddenly very clear why he looked so familiar.

“Holy crap, is that Penguin?”

Jim looked up from the photos at Harvey’s astonished exclamation and bark of laughter. Apparently, Harvey had recognised the young man at about the same time Jim had, and plucked the photo from Jim’s unresisting grip. The next photo down was if anything even more obviously Oswald than the profile shot – there was no mistaking the angular features, or those pale eyes half obscured by strands of jet black hair.

Harvey peered intently at the photo he had taken, expression somewhere between amusement and disbelief.

“Jesus Christ… I didn’t think the little guy had it in him,” he turned the photo on its side, his eyebrows disappearing under his hat, “Literally.”

Jim’s nose wrinkled in distaste, and he snatched the photo back from Harvey, stuffing it back into the manila envelope along with the others.

“Shut up, Harv.”

Harvey chuckled softly at Jim’s reaction, clapping a hand on his shoulder.

“You know, if you ever wanted to get the little creep out of your life, this is a golden opportunity,” he said, “Just tell him that if he doesn't leave town then you’ll send those photos to the Gotham Gazette. See how quick he clears out.”

Jim scowled reproachfully, and Harvey held up his hands in submission.

“Just something to think about, that’s all I’m saying.”

Jim folded over the tab of the envelope and slipped it into his jacket. He knew that if he handed the photos in at the precinct they’d end up circulated around the who division by the following morning. If he was going to keep them safe and secret for any length of time he’d have to take them home with him. He picked up the papers from the desk and smacked Harvey lightly in the chest with them.

“I think I’ll pass on the opportunity, thanks.”

That night in his apartment, Jim studied the photos closely, telling himself he was checking to see if they contained any information that might be useful or pertinent to the case.

Not that his focus every lingered long on the victim – Jefferies – who appeared as a sweating, lobster pink mass of middle aged flesh. A lump of clay wrapped artlessly around a delicate porcelain figurine…

A time stamp on the back gave the date they were developed, and a quick bit of mental arithmetic told Jim that Oswald would have been about 23 when they were taken. Was he already Fish Mooney’s umbrella boy back then? Or still just an ordinary citizen? No noticeable scars marred his pale skin; just a pink flush of exertion, and the beginnings of fingerprint bruises and bite marks. His ribs were quite prominent; an extension of his naturally slender frame, or a hint as to why he was cozied up to a wealthy man over twice his age?

As much as he tried to remain clinical, Jim was fighting a losing battle against the treacherous stirrings of his own body. He’d look at a shot of Jefferies thrusting forward into Oswald’s body, and he could almost hear the cry of pleasure-pain that had no doubt broken from Oswald’s lips at that moment. In another shot, Jefferies was biting down on the pale flesh of Oswald’s neck, leaving a red mark that was visible in all the subsequent photos. All Jim could think about was soothing the bite mark with his tongue.

There had always been… something, about Oswald that drew Jim in. He’d done his best to avoid it, to ignore it and push it away, but confronted with the hot rush of arousal deep in his belly at the sight of the photos… It seemed pointless to try and lie to himself.

Jim ran a hand over his face, trying to ignore the tremble in his wrist. He poured himself a glass of scotch, and drained it in a single swallow. He allowed himself one more glance at the photos before stuffing them back in the envelope and pushing it away.

Not that not having them in front of him anymore stopped them from replaying in his mind.

A short time later, he lay in bed, limbs twisting in the sheets.

On some level it felt wrong, like he was taking advantage. Whatever problems he and Oswald had, he still had a lot of respect for him; for his strength, his resourcefulness, his intelligence and wit…  The guy drove Jim mad, but he couldn’t imagine his life without him in it. If he was done pretending he didn’t want Oswald, he may as well admit to himself that he cared about him too, a great deal. None of that changed the fact that looking at those photos had left Jim so hard that it was painful.

He slipped his hand under the waistband of his boxers, taking his length in hand. He stroked himself, slowly at first, but more quickly and firmly as images swirled in his mind, followed by justifications. He hadn’t sought the photographs out, they had come to him in the course of an investigation, which wasn’t his fault. And so long as he wasn’t literally looking at them while he got off then that didn’t count as ‘getting off to them’, surely? Not if the images were just in his head…

In his mind he was the one with Oswald in that hotel room. He was the one who got to run his hands over that smooth, pale skin. To hear the sounds of pleasure he made, feel the movement of his slim, lithe body, taste salt and sweetness with his lips against his neck…

His climax came quickly, a shout muffled by his pillow as he turned his face into it. As he lay back, coming down from the high of orgasm and coming back to his sense, all the excuses he’d made seemed to ring a little hollow. He squeezed his eyes shut, and curled in on himself a little, arms wrapped around a pillow as he tried to get to sleep.


	2. Chapter 2

The next morning, Jim stuffed the envelope back into his jacket pocket. He resisted the temptation to take one last look, though it felt like it was burning a hole through his jacket the entire way to the station. Fortunately, the investigation kept him distracted for most of the day, and Harvey dropped the issue after Jim promised to pay for his lunch.

It turned out the papers Jim had uncovered pointed to a bookie downtown with a history of assault and battery, though it would take until the next day for a warrant to be processed. Jim had hoped to make an arrest that day and have that news to take to Oswald along with the photos, but he knew he couldn’t hold out for another night. Arrest or no arrest, he was going to the Iceberg Lounge that evening and dealing with this once and for all.

When his shift ended, it was still early by night club standards, and he got a few raised eyebrows from the hired muscle on the door. Once inside however, a bartender he had encountered on a few of his previous visits raised an (empty) glass to him and nodded towards Oswald’s office. Luckily for Jim, he didn’t seem to be busy.

As he walked into the office, and took in the sight of Oswald sat behind his desk in his oversized chair (more of a throne, really), the contrast between the Oswald in the photos and the one sat before him was obvious. He was older, obviously, but no less attractive for it. In fact, in Jim’s opinion the years had been good to him, evening out some of the awkwardness of youth. Not to mention the benefits a steady income had obviously had on his health; while he was still slender he was no longer painfully thin, and his complexion no longer had that sickly cast it had had when they first met.

In short, he was annoyingly even more gorgeous in person than in the photos and it wasn’t fair at all. Especially when Jim couldn’t stop thinking about what was under all those layers of expensive tailoring.

Jim cleared his throat to announce his presence, and Oswald looked up from a ledger he’d been writing in.

“Jim,” he put the ledger to one side and leaned forward on his desk, steepling his fingers with a superior sort of smile, “To what do I owe this unexpected pleasure?”

Jim licked his lips, trying to banish the images conjured up by the simple act of Oswald saying ‘pleasure’.

“Councilman Roland Jefferies was found murdered in his apartment yesterday morning.”

There was a pause, just a tiny one, but long enough for Jim to notice. Oswald narrowed his eyes at Jim for a fraction of a second before plastering on an impassive smile.

“Tragic, I’m sure, but I don’t see what that has to do with me.”

Jim stepped up closer to Oswald’s desk, trying to keep his tone and body language casual.

“On the surface nothing, except that we found these in an office leased to him on Third Street,” he brandished the envelope full of photos, and set it down on the polished surface of the desk. He pushed it towards Oswald with his fingertips until it was within his reach. “Under the circumstances I thought you might want them back.”

Jim swallowed as Oswald picked up the envelope. As he opened it and took it its contents, the dawning realisation turned Oswald’s already pale complexion a sick and bloodless shade of white.

“Get out of my office, Jim.”

Jim blinked in surprise, and opened his mouth to speak. He didn’t get as far as making a sound before Oswald cut him off with a furious yell, eyes flashing.

“Get out!”

Oswald’s raised voice drew the attention of two of the goons who had been hanging around the club, and they suddenly appeared, ready to throw Jim out if necessary. He shrugged one of them off as a meaty hand came to rest on his arm, and walked out willingly, kicking himself for not anticipating Oswald’s negative reaction.

The next day saw Jim in a despondent mood, which in turn saw most of the precinct give him a wide berth.

On the plus side however, things moved swiftly along with the Jefferies case. The warrant came through for the bookie, and despite his hard man image the guy quickly crumbled under questioning. Murder had been a step up for him, and one he clearly couldn’t handle.

As they locked him up pending his bail hearing and trial, Harvey gave Jim a sly sort of smile.

“You going to go make things right with our little pin-up boy?”

Jim bristled.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“Don’t give me that, you’ve been moping like a kicked puppy all day. Whatever happened with Penguin last night, go tell him we’ve found his old dance partner’s killer and fix it,” he slapped Jim on the back, fondly, “I deal with too much of your emotional turmoil as it is.”

Jim did have to concede that Harvey had a point, and that evening he returned to the Lounge; this time armed with better news.

The bartender gave Jim a sympathetic look as he entered, having no doubt heard the commotion the night before. Instead of Oswald’s office, he nodded towards the end of the bar, where Oswald was sat perched atop a high bar stool. He had a glass of bourbon in front of him, and judging by his posture it wasn’t his first one of the evening.

Jim approached slowly, warily, and climbed up onto a stool next to Oswald. Oswald spared him a brief glance of acknowledgement before focusing his attention back on his drink.

“I thought you should know,” said Jim, his voice sounding unnaturally loud and hoarse to his own ears, “We’ve arrested Roland Jefferies murderer.”

Oswald looked up from his glass and gave Jim a long, flat look.

“Congratulations on a job well done,” he said, dryly. He turned in his seat, angling his body away from Jim in what would have been a comically sulky manner in any other circumstances.

“I wanted to say I’m sorry for being insensitive yesterday, about the photos,” said Jim, softly. Oswald stiffened next to him, as though suppressing a flinch, and Jim bit the inside of his lip before continuing, hesitantly. “Were the two of you in a relationship for long?”

Oswald laughed bitterly, giving Jim a disbelieving look.

“Tell me you’re not that naïve,” he huffed a frustrated sigh at Jim’s confused expression, “I didn’t have a _relationship_ with him, in fact we had never met before that night. Fish wanted dirt on him she could use for blackmail, and I was what you’d probably call a 'honey trap'.”

Jim’s eyes widened in shock. Obviously he’d encountered things like that before, but somehow the thought hadn’t occurred to him in this instance.

“You mean…”

Oswald nodded, picking up his glass and swirling it thoughtfully, gazing into the amber depths rather than meeting Jim’s eyes.

“We knew he liked to cruise bars and cheat on his wife with men less than half his age, but knowing was worthless without proof. Sure, we could have tailed him until he picked someone up of his own accord, but why run that risk? It was so much easier to just arrange for someone of his preferred type to cross paths with him, lead him up to a hotel room, and have a photographer waiting across the street ready to take all the pictures we needed.”

Jim frowned.

“And they gave the job to you?”

Oswald sipped his drink and set it down on the bar, running his finger around the rim.

“Agency boys don’t like those kinds of jobs because they’re too high risk, and street kids are unreliable. Meanwhile there I was, a young man looking for an inroad to the organisation, and as luck would have it I was just his type. So you know, two birds, one stone.” His voice was sarcastic and full of suppressed anger. He leaned in towards Jim, gesturing expansively with a flick of his wrist “You see, James, when you’re trying to gain access to the inner circle, you need to prove yourself somehow, and that requires a sacrifice. A lot of the time you’re asked to kill someone… but that’s not what they wanted from me.”

Jim swallowed, his mouth feeling dry suddenly. It made sense, he supposed; Oswald had never been hired as muscle, or even as an assassin. However naturally gifted in the art of killing he may have turned out to be, it certainly wasn’t the skill set he’d been kept around for. Besides, maybe Fish could sense he’d enjoy it too much for it to be meaningful.

Oswald gave him a humourless smile, and raised his glass in a mocking salute.

“For me the sacrifice was my dignity. She should have appreciated it more than she did.”

Jim shifted in his seat, hating himself a little for the question he was about to ask, but unable not to.

“Did you… enjoy it?”

The look Oswald gave him was cold enough that Jim would have preferred to be staring down the barrel of Victor Fries’ ice gun.

“It was a job, and not one that required that much effort on my part,” he said, shrugging with deliberate, affected indifference, a sneer in his voice, “It could have been worse.”

“Oswald…”

Oswald leaned in closer, fast as a striking cobra, eyes blazing.

“Why did you bring me those photos?” he hissed, “You could have just destroyed them, but no, you had to bring them to me in person, let me know that you’d seen them just so you could humiliate me!”

“That wasn’t what I wanted,” said Jim, insistently, “I didn’t know what I was looking at, and I wanted to give you the choice.”

“What kind of moron do you take me for?” Oswald slid down off his barstool, wobbling slightly, “This was all just so you could make some big joke at my expense.”

“No!” Jim hopped down from his own stool, reaching out to grab Oswald’s arm, “Oswald, I couldn’t make a joke out of this if I wanted to… The other guy, he looked like a joke, but you just looked beautiful.”

Jim’s voice cracked on the last word, and Oswald gaped at him. They stared at each other for a long moment, before Oswald wrenched his arm out of Jim’s grip, a stricken look on his face. He turned unsteadily on his heel and stormed away, grabbing his cane from where it was propped up by the bar and disappearing into one of the back rooms.

Jim groaned in frustration and sat back down.

When he looked up, the bartender had left him a glass of scotch, with a scribbled note on a napkin saying it was on the house.


	3. Chapter 3

Weeks passed without Jim being able to enter the Iceberg Lounge again.

At first he thought he should keep his distance, do Oswald the courtesy of giving him some space and some time before he attempted to clear the air. Unfortunately, he soon found that he’d misjudged the timescale somewhat, as when he tried to cross the threshold a few days after his confrontation with Oswald, he was met at the door by a pair of burly, unsmiling bouncers. They glowered down at him with furrowed brows and folded arms.

“Boss doesn’t want you comin’ in here.”

“You’re on the blacklist, pal.”

He tried to protest, but found himself hoisted bodily from the ground and forcibly ejected from the doorstep. For a while he could do nothing but stare up at the building, at roughly the spot where he imagined Oswald’s office to be.

No matter what had transpired between them before, no matter what they’d fought over or what he said, Oswald had never turned him away before. Not without at least talking to him first. He’d screwed things up really badly this time, and the guilt weighed heavily in his stomach and in his heart.

It didn’t help matters that his sleep was constantly disturbed by dreams about what he’d seen in the damn photos.

He tried not to let it affect his work, and he thought he was doing pretty well. He gave evidence in the hearing regarding Jefferies case with no trouble, and soon moved on to the next murder – a simple domestic. Just more of the daily grind of Gotham city, crime capital of the world…

But of course, Harvey noticed he wasn’t himself.

“Look, I’ll admit that I don’t especially want to hear about whatever it is that’s going on with you and Penguin,” said Harvey, perching on the edge of Jim’s desk with a slight creak of the wood, “Christ knows seeing those pictures probably took enough years off my life as it is.”

Jim flashed him a look at that. He’d been realising more and more how much it bothered him when Harvey made cracks at Oswald’s expense.

“But,” Harvey continued, “If you want to go somewhere and drown your woes in a beer or two… or more than two… then I’m happy to help.”

Jim was too despondent to follow his own better judgement, and agreed to go out for a few drinks, knowing full well that Harvey’s idea of ‘a few’ differed somewhat from most people’s. Several beers with whiskey chasers later at a run-down bar near the precinct, he found that Harvey was, as usual, far more open to talking about things once he had some booze in his system.

“Why can’t you just do what you usually do?” said Harvey, leaning on the worn, pitted surface of the bar and grimacing slightly as his elbow landed in a sticky puddle of spilled beer, “Just, wait until the next time you we need help with a case and go begging Penguin for help. He loves it when you do that, makes him feel all important and useful.”

“I can’t do that,” said Jim, exasperated, “after the way we left things, if he thinks I’m going just to take advantage of him he’s gonna throw me out on the street again. Unless of course he’s in a really bad mood, in which case he might also have me stabbed.”

“Glad to hear you’re finally bein’ sensible about the stabbing possibility.” Harvey tipped his glass in Jim’s direction and Jim rolled his eyes.

“The point is, if I’m going to have any chance of him talking to me, I can’t go in there seeming like I have an ulterior motive. Problem is, I can’t get near enough to explain myself in the first place.”

“Have you called him?”

“Yeah. And he hung up on me.” Or rather the Lounge’s secretary had. He hadn’t even been able to get through on Oswald’s cell phone.

Harvey shrugged expansively, face twisting into a ‘what are you gonna do’ grimace, before returning to his drink. But whether he had realised it or not, he had given Jim an idea. If Oswald wouldn’t accept a visit or a phone call, perhaps there was another way to get through to him. For all that Oswald had modernised the underworld, it a lot of ways he was still a traditionalist at heart. He appreciated personal gestures.

A memory popped into his head of Oswald arriving at the precinct with an envelope in his hand and an eager, hopeful smile. Just one of many times Jim had caused him pain.

He finished his drink in a single swallow, face scrunching up briefly at the burn of alcohol down his throat, and waited for Harvey to finish his own so that he could make sure his partner got home safely. Outside the bar, he helped Harvey pour himself into a cab and set about walking the few blocks to his own apartment, plan formulating in his mind. The air was crisp and cold, and the streets surprisingly empty for the time of night, though Jim could hear the sounds of music and occasional shouting drifting on the still air from a few streets away.

Back up in his apartment, the air was warmer, but the quiet was heavier. The atmosphere seemed empty and stale somehow, in a way he’d only recently begun to notice.

He set down his keys with a clatter, and pulled some notepaper out of a drawer, not bothering to take off his jacket. Out of the fresh air his mind was a little clouded by drink, but not enough to deter him from his purpose. He remembered something Barbara said to him when she’d taken a creative writing class – bored with too much time on her hands and briefly convinced that she must have a great novel in her somewhere. ‘Write drunk, edit sober’ or something to that effect, a quote from some famous author, though which one it was escaped him.  In Barbara’s case it was probably just an excuse to have an extra few glasses of wine, but she’d got it from somewhere.

If Oswald didn’t want to talk to him in person he could respect that, but he still felt he had to apologise, and the best way he could come up with was to write him an apology letter.

Well… more like a note, in truth. He’d never had that much of a way with words. His handwriting was a little sloppy, and he corrected himself several times, crossing things out and writing them, but that didn’t matter. He knew he would have to re-write it the morning anyway, if only to confirm to himself that the idea wasn’t completely insane.

Satisfied that he’d gotten everything he wanted to say down on paper, he finally put himself to bed, crashing out in his boxers and vest and burrowing into the crumpled sheets. Whether it was the alcohol buzzing through his system or the weight off his mind, it was the best night’s sleep he’d had in weeks.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So my two chapter fic I initially planned is now going to have at least 4 chapters...  
> This one was very much a 'I need to get this stuff done before I can get to what I want to write' sort of thing so I apologise for that. I also apologise for taking so long...


	4. Chapter 4

A few days later Jim found himself at the Lounge once more, this time by invitation.

He had sent his apology letter via a courier, to make sure it got there without any issues, and waited on tenterhooks for a reply. Just when he had fully convinced himself that the whole thing had been a mistake, the very same secretary who had once hung up on him called the station to invite him round that evening.

As he entered the building he was once again glowered at by the hired muscle, who were no doubt disappointed that they didn’t get to physically throw him out again. They reluctantly parted to let him past, grumbling as they did so, and Jim swore he heard one of them crack his knuckles.

He headed for Oswald’s office, his heart in his throat, though he was somewhat encouraged by the friendly smile the bartender gave him as he passed. He nodded to the bartender in return, hoping it was a good sign.

When he entered the office, Oswald was sat behind his desk, looking over a ledger that was no doubt written in a far neater hand than Jim’s letter had been. As Jim stepped closer however, he noticed that the letter itself was also open on the desk, its edges a little more crumpled that when he last saw it.

“Jim. I’m glad you made it.”

Oswald’s voice was like cool fingertips pressing against the back of Jim’s neck.

 “I got your letter,” Oswald continued, gesturing to it with a jewelled letter opener that looked dangerously well made, “It was… surprisingly thoughtful of you.”

“Yeah well,” said Jim, swallowing a touch nervously at the backhanded compliment, “I just wanted to apologise. For embarrassing you… for dragging up bad memories. I didn’t think it through, and I’m sorry.”

Oswald twirled the letter opener thoughtfully between his fingers, leaning back against the arm of his chair.

“It did bring up some bad memories,” he said, his tone almost dangerously calm. The jewels on the hilt of the letter opener glinted in the lamplight, rubies like drops of blood. Jim could feel the hairs on the back of his neck stand on end, cold prickling down his spine. “But, I’ve come to realise that you weren’t being intentionally malicious.”

Oswald’s eyes flicked up to meet Jim’s, and Jim hoped he wasn’t imagining that he saw a touch of the old warmth back in their depths. A small smile spread over Oswald’s face, and he set the letter opener down, pushing it to one side along with the letter, the ledger, and the rest of his mail. He rose from his seat and stepped around the desk.

“The point is, I accept your apology.”

Jim’s shoulders sagged with relief. Or, mostly relief, anyway.

“I’m glad,” he said, voice carefully even. He cleared his throat a little awkwardly. “I guess, if there are no hard feelings, I’ll be seeing you around.”

Oswald seemed to hesitate a moment, as if he wanted to say something more, but then he nodded, and gestured to the door.

“I imagine you will.”

Jim gave his own nod in return, holding Oswald’s gaze, giving him a chance to say something. When Oswald remained silent, he cursed himself internally, and turned his back on Oswald, heading for the exit.

He got one step.

“Jim…”

Jim turned around, far too quickly and eagerly, like he’d been waiting for an excuse not to leave. Oswald's hand was on Jim's arm, and his grip tightened on his sleeve just a little, holding him in place even though he’d made no move to run away.

“Before you go, I just want to know one thing,” those maddening eyes stared up at Jim with so much intensity, “Did you mean what you said to me at the bar?”

Time seemed to stop for a moment.

He didn’t need to clarify what he meant.

“Yeah,” said Jim, his mouth dry, “I really did.”

Oswald’s grip on Jim’s sleeve loosened, but he didn’t let go entirely, taking half a step closer. His gaze dropped to somewhere around Jim’s collar, voice taking on a tremulous, half shy tone.

“How closely did you look at those photos?”

Jim’s stomach turned over, images flashing through his mind, and when he spoke his voice came out rough and low.

“Pretty damn closely.”

Oswald nodded, still not meeting Jim’s gaze, as if doing to would make him lose his nerve. He chewed the inside of his lip, eyebrows drawing down.

“Do you know… how many people I’ve been intimate with since those photos were taken?”

Jim swallowed down a lump in his throat.

“No. And I don’t care.”

Oswald’s head snapped up, eyes flashing, the beginnings of an affronted tirade visible in the set of his jaw. Jim cut him off, turning his arm so that he was the one holding onto Oswald’s wrist. He stepped closer, their bodies almost touching.

“I just mean, it isn’t my place to judge, and there’s nothing you could say that would make me think less of you.”

The tightness in Oswald’s jaw melted away at that, but the spark in his eyes remained. Or perhaps it was replaced by a different sort of spark.

“I am not ashamed of my past, Jim, or of anything I’ve done to get where I am today. I do whatever is necessary, what I have to do.”

He leaned in, the tip of his nose brushing against Jim’s.

“But that doesn’t mean I don’t also do what I want to do.”

***

In Jim’s dreams and fantasies, the setting was always the hotel from the pictures. It was the only reference point he had for picturing Oswald in that context.

Oswald’s bedroom at the Lounge was far more luxurious.

Jim barely remembered getting up the stairs to the room – clutching at each other and stumbling on the steps (Jim stumbling more than Oswald, bent in the middle to kiss him as they moved). It was almost dreamlike in its own way, and were it not for the very real feeling of Oswald’s body pressed against him, Jim might have been tempted to wonder if he was in fact back in his own bed, alone with his fantasies.

At first, Oswald moved with confidence and surety, climbing onto the bed and pulling Jim with him. But in the low lamplight, Jim saw a flicker of uncertainty cross his features as he removed his jacket and waistcoat.

As though noticing Jim noticing, Oswald’s eyes then flashed with an anxious sort of defiance, and quickly dispensed with his shirt and tie.

“I know I may not live up to those photographs anymore…” He seemed to swallow down the end of that sentence, his tone and body language at once daring Jim to make some sort of negative comment and begging him not to run away.

Jim reached out and lightly brushed his fingers against Oswald’s bare shoulder, tracing down, down, over smooth and raised scars to the softness of his stomach. Oswald gasped quietly, and something warm coiled in Jim’s belly.

“Can I tell you something?” he shifted closer, breath warm against Oswald’s lips, “Being honest, I did get off thinking about those photos.”

He started to undo his own buttons, and smiled to himself at the way he heard Oswald’s breath catch in his throat. Shrugging out of his shirt, he dipped his head and pressed a kiss just below Oswald’s ear.

“But I like you better the way you are now.”

However much the fantasies had driven Jim mad since he’d seen the photos, they were nothing compared to the reality.

Oswald’s long fingers digging into Jim’s shoulders as he pulled him down on top of him, and those same clever hands helping Jim to get them both out of their pants and underwear. There was a little more to him than there had been all those years prior – the slight curve of his stomach irresistibly soft and touchable, the muscles of his arms and shoulders more defined – and Jim was entranced by every inch.

Meanwhile, Oswald for his part seemed just as taken with Jim, his touch at once greedy and somehow reverent as he clung tight to him. Their bodies rocked together, the creak of the sprung mattress and whisper of silken sheets the background noise to the sounds of pleasure Jim had imagined and longed to hear.

Jim took Oswald’s length in hand, stroking him and mouthing at the pale length of his neck until he was a trembling mess beneath him. “I’ve wanted you for so long,” he murmured, lips grazing the scar on Oswald’s shoulder. His hand on Oswald’s cock drifted down further, fingertips pressing lightly against his entrance in a way that had Oswald tipping his head back against the pillows and groaning half incoherently about lube in the bedside cabinet.

Deliciously tight heat and pressure around his fingers, Oswald’s hands tugging at his hair as he pulled him in for a bruising kiss, gasping ‘please’ against Jim’s lips as he worked him open, the firm muscle of Oswald’s undamaged leg hooked around his hip as Jim thrust deep into him, his lips kiss-reddened as he half moaned and half whined Jim’s name…

It was a miracle Jim lasted as long as he did.

They lay together in the afterglow, bodies sheened with sweat in the warmth of the room. Oswald’s head was pillowed on Jim’s chest, Jim’s arm draped around Oswald’s shoulders as their chests rose and fell together in time. Jim was near to drifting off, sleepy and sated, when Oswald spoke up.

“There’s been no one, you know.”

Jim lifted his head off the pillow a little to look down at him, though Oswald didn’t move. Jim could feel his breath against his skin and the vibration of his voice as much as he could hear him as he spoke again.

“I know you said you didn’t care,” his hand curled loosely into a fist against Jim’s breastbone, “But I wanted to tell you anyway.”

He swallowed, as though bracing himself, before he continued.

“Back then, it wasn’t just feeling exposed or used that was the problem. You expect to be a pawn in your early days in the underworld; you pay your dues. And it could have been a lot worse, physically speaking, even if the late Councillor Jefferies was something of a brute… It was some of the jokes and comments that were made. About how desperate the guy must have been if he was willing to go up to that hotel room with a little freak like me. Like the fact he was cheating on his wife wasn’t the shameful part so much as cheating with _me_ specifically. It wasn’t just objectifying, it was _demeaning_. And then of course when I found out you’d seen the photos, I thought…”

Jim’s arm tightened around him, and he looked up, that same intense gaze that Jim had come to love so much.

“I promised myself I wouldn’t let it happen again. Not unless I found someone who I could trust. Who knew me, and… still wanted me, and cared about me for who I was. Who didn’t see me as a tool, or a convenience, or a joke.”

Jim sat up, carefully pulling Oswald into an embrace. He kissed him, softly, and spoke a whisper against his lips.

“I can give you that.”


End file.
